Funky background

Hello everyone I am new to this site and kind of new to photoshop and need some help/suggestions. One of the guys I work with here in Afghanistan had a picture of himself and his daughter that he asked if I could fix a problem. Well, I worked on it for a little while but have not really come up with anything that is that good. The photo itself is no that great but it means something to him. There is a really blown out hotspot on the daughter's shoulder/hair that makes the shoulder and hair look strange and maybe even some camera shake. I cropped the photo down to loose the lamp in the back ground to make a better compositions.Thnaks for the help.

Jake
on small areas like the arm it is hard with the different skin tones, so i got the shape as good as i could, then used the healing brush to help blend in the colours,
the clone tool is hard to master and believe me when i say i fell luckyish on this one
and there is always lots to learn just take your time practice and try to enjoy

That "hot spot" was the result of camera movement before (or after) the flash fired causing the bright light outside to smear onto the subject. To repair it, you'll have to repaint. I made a selection with the pen tool outlining where the arm/hair should be, then used liquify to coax pixels back. Then it was just a matter of painting in details and shading. I did this quickly to illustrate.

Used the native extract tool, cloned and healed the bad arm and hair areas, added a shape/style merged with a stone picture for a new background, added shadows for depth, sharpened eyes, and jewels on a softlight layer and darkened the lips a bit

Lonnie that is super, not that i know a lot about this sort of repair but i would not of even thought about your method. did you do the same with the hair?

Yes, Palms, I included the hair, though I did additional painting/smudging after. Pre-selecting prior to going into liquify is a powerful technique. I used this same method with my winning contest entry in August. I was able to fit the painting to the horse and its contours in minutes.

Yes, Palms, I included the hair, though I did additional painting/smudging after. Pre-selecting prior to going into liquify is a powerful technique. I used this same method with my winning contest entry in August. I was able to fit the painting to the horse and its contours in minutes.

Thank you Lonnie for all the info it has given me a new way to look at things, and a new technique to practice